The present invention is generally directed to polyhydroxyalkanoates polymers and methods of preparation to remove pyrogen and use thereof in a variety of biomedical applications, including tissue engineering, wound dressings, drug delivery, and in prosthetics.
Polyhydroxy alkanoates (PHAs) are polymers with repeating hydroxy acid monomeric units. PHAs have been reviewed in several publications, including Byrom, “Miscellaneous Biomaterials,” in Biomaterials (D. Byrom, ed.) pp. 333-59 (MacMillan Publishers, London 1991); Hocking and Marchessault, “Biopolyesters” in Chemistry and Technology of Biodegradable Polymers (G. J. L. Griffin, ed.) pp. 48-96 (Chapman and Hall, London 1994); Müller and Seebach, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl., 32:477-502 (1993); Steinbüchel, “Polyhydroxyalkanoic Acids,” in Biomaterials (D. Byrom, ed.) pp. 123-213 (MacMillan Publishers, London 1991); and Williams and Peoples, CHEMTECH, 26:38-44 (1996).
Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) and polyhydroxybutyrate-hydroxyvalerate (PHBV) have been used commercially as a biodegradable replacement for synthetic commodity resins, and have been extensively studied for use in biomedical applications. Examples of these biomedical applications include controlled release (Pouton and Akhtar, Adv. Drug Delivery Rev., 18:133-62 (1996)), tablet formulations, surgical sutures, wound dressings, lubricating powders, blood vessels, tissue scaffolds, surgical implants to join tubular body parts, bone fracture fixation plates, and other orthopedic uses, (Hocking and Marchessault, “Biopolyesters” in Chemistry and Technology of Biodegradable Polymers, (G. J. L. Griffin, ed.) pp. 48-96 (Chapman and Hall, London 1994) and references therein); European Patent Application 754 467 A1 (Bowald, et al.). See also Saghir Akhtar, Ph.D. Thesis for the University of Bath, 1990, “Physicomechanical Properties of Bacterial P(HB-HV) Polyesters and Their Uses in Drug Delivery”. PHBV has been used to sustain cell growth and in tissue reconstruction (see, e.g., Rivard, et al., J. Appl. Biomat., 6:65-68 (1995)). However, PHBs and PHBVs have been shown to induce acute inflammatory responses when implanted in vivo (Akhtar at pp. 50-51, and references cited therein).
Biodegradable polymers for medical uses must be biocompatible and degrade into non-toxic metabolites. Medical devices must also be nonpyrogenic, i.e., the products must not produce fever reactions when administered to patients. The presence of bacterial endotoxin (which is an integral component of the outer cell surface of Gram-negative bacteria), in the product is by far the largest concern of manufacturers in achieving nonpyrogenation. (Weary and Pearson, BioPharm., 1:22-29 (1988)). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for example, requires the endotoxin content of medical devices not exceed 20 U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) endotoxin fluid, where the content must not exceed 2.15 USP endotoxin units per device. Acceptable endotoxin levels may need to be even lower for some applications, where the polymer is to be used for particularly sensitive applications. Therefore, in developing PHAs for use in medical devices, the materials must meet the specific requirements set for endotoxin content, particularly for PHAs derived by fermentation of gram-negative bacteria, where the polymers are exposed to large amounts of endotoxin in the cell culture.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,334,698 to Witholt, et al. discloses sutures, films, skin grafts, and bone grafts prepared from an optically active polyester isolated from Pseudomonas oleovorans cells. PCT Application Publication WO 96/00263 (Eggink, et al.) discloses an aqueous latex-like PHA dispersion, wherein the PHA includes saturated or unsaturated 3-hydroxy fatty acids having a carbon chain length of 6-14. Hocking and Marchessault, “Biopolyesters” in Chemistry and Technology of Biodegradable Polymers, (G. J. L. Griffin, ed.) pp. 48-96 (Chapman and Hall, London 1994) also discloses polyesters with functionalized side-chains prepared by bacteria upon modifying the feed substrate, and their use for preparing drug delivery systems. These materials would inherently include endotoxin, and there is no disclosure of any methods for removing endotoxins or procedures for providing depyrogenated polymers suitable for in vivo medical use.
Despite the large amount of literature describing production, purification, and applications development of PHAs, there are currently no reported methods specifically for depyrogenating PHA polymers. PHAs have a relatively high affinity for endotoxins, complicating the use of routine procedures for depyrogenation. Thus, there is a need to develop methods for depyrogenating PHA polymers, particularly when they are produced by fermentation in Gram-negative bacteria.
Even aside from the issue of pyrogenicity, there remains a need to develop additional biodegradable polymers for in vivo use, particularly polymers with alternative physical and chemical properties. These properties include characteristics relevant to ease of processing, as well as suitability for the end use. An important physical property for processing of the polymers is the melting point or glass transition temperature of the materials. PHB, PHBV (0-24% V), PGA and PLGA, for example, all melt only at relatively high temperatures, above 136° C. This high temperature can be a disadvantage in fabrication if the polymers are to be combined in the melt with other heat sensitive components. It would be advantageous to have a class of PHAs which have melting points or glass transition temperatures below 136° C. for use in biomedical applications. Further, many PHAs are only soluble in potentially toxic chlorinated solvents. There is thus a need to develop low melting PHAs that can be melt processed at low temperatures and/or can be dissolved in non-toxic, generally acceptable solvents. However, there is currently no commercial source for polyhydroxyalkanoate materials with these properties.
Other properties such as the thermal and mechanical properties, density and crystallinity, are also of interest. These properties can be modified by mixing or blending PHAs with other materials, or by changing the PHA composition. The commercially available PHAs, PHB and PHBV, have only limited uses. Other PHAs can be used for very different applications. For example, the extension-to-break of PHBV ranges from about 8 to 42%, whereas the same property for polyhydroxyoctanoate (PHO), a low melting PHA, is about 380% (Gagnon, et al., Rubber World, 207:32-38 (1992)). Similarly, PHBV has a Young's Modulus of between 1,000 and 3,500 MPa and a tensile strength of between 20 and 31 MPa, in contrast to PHO which has a Young's Modulus of 8 MPa and a tensile strength of 9 MPa (Gagnon, et al., Rubber World, 207:32-38 (1992)). These properties and others have lead to PHO being classified as a thermoplastic elastomer (Gagnon, et al., Rubber World, 207:32-38 (1992)). The covalent crosslinking of unsaturated pendant groups of several polyhydroxyalkanoate thermoplastic elastomers has been reported (Gagnon, et al., Polymer, 35:4358-67 (1994)), although the use of the polymers for preparing medical devices is not disclosed. It would be useful to develop biocompatible low melting PHAs containing groups which can be covalently modified, or which can be subsequently modified to expose functional groups which can be derivatized, for use in preparing medical devices.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide polyhydroxyalkanoate polymers having most of pyrogen removed, for use in biomedical applications.
It is another object of this invention to provide biocompatible polyhydroxyalkanoate polymers with low melting points and/or solubility in non-toxic, non-halogenated solvents.
It is another object of this invention to provide polyhydroxyalkanoates having desirable properties for use in a variety of biomedical applications, such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, medical imaging, and the manufacture of prosthetics, stents, and coatings.
It is a further object of this invention to provide methods for making biomedical devices using polyhydroxyalkanoate polymers.